[4] The event was notable for featuring many high-profile ex-association footballers, fuelling its popularity, including the likes of the Brazilians Zico, Júnior and Cláudio Adão, Italian 1982 World Cup winners Alessandro Altobelli and Claudio Gentile, Franco Causio, England's Gary Stevens and Luther Blissett, and brothers René and Willy van de Kerkhof of the Netherlands' 1978 World Cup runners-up squad.

[6] This conception materialised a year later in 1995 as this, the maiden Beach Soccer World Championships – a larger and longer eight team event compared to the Mundialito.

The top two teams progressed straight to the semi-finals from which point on the championship was played as a knock-out tournament until a winner was crowned with an additional match to determine third place.

[7][8][9] Zico revealed at the launch he accepted an invitation from his friend and Brazilian team captain, Júnior, to play at the event, despite claiming to be "out of shape"[8] now aged 41, having retired from football a year earlier.

Koch Tavares, the tournament organisers, decided that as the first World Cup of beach soccer, since the sport is a derivative of association football, it would be fitting for the six winners of the FIFA World Cup of football throughout history (as of 1995) to field a team in Rio (being hosts Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Uruguay, England and Germany) and as such the aforementioned nations were invited to play, all of which accepted the opportunity.